Integration Services (SSIS)

Sifiso Ndlovu

How to Avoid Package Design Flaws When Sourcing Data From Flat Files

May 10, 2017 by

As developers of SQL Server Integrations Services (SSIS) solutions, we have more than likely configured Flat File Connections as sources in our Data Flow Tasks. Whilst any unforeseen changes to the structure and formatting of flat files will invariably cause SSIS packages to fail, as developers we can still do a lot in reducing unnecessary SSIS package failures relating to data coming out of flat files. In this article, we offer recommended development practices to some flat file source errors that occur as a result of poor SSIS development practices.

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Daniel Calbimonte

How to migrate MySQL tables to SQL Server using the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) and SSIS

April 25, 2017 by

Introduction

In this article, we will demonstrate how to migrate MySQL tables to SQL Server using the SQL Server Migration Assistant (SSMA) and SSIS. We will give a brief introduction to MySQL and create a table. If you do not have any experience in MySQL, this tutorial will teach you your first steps. After that, we will migrate the created table and existing tables. We will also mention common problems when we migrate tables.

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Thomas LeBlanc

How to execute a Deployed Package from the SSIS Catalog with various options

March 21, 2017 by

In my previous two articles on SQL Server integration Services (SSIS), Parameterizing Database Connection in SSIS and Deploying Packages to SSIS Catalog (SSISDB), packages were developed, deployed and configured in the SSIS Catalog. Now, it is time to execute the packages with various options. There are a couple of ways to do this, but we need to be able to change the parameter values as well as monitor for failures or successes.

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Koen Verbeeck

Integration Services Performance Best Practices – Writing to the Destination

January 26, 2017 by

With this article, we continue part 1 of common best practices to optimize the performance of Integration Services packages. As mentioned in the previous article “Integration Services (SSIS) Performance Best Practices – Data Flow Optimization“, it’s not an exhaustive list of all possible performance improvements for SSIS packages. It merely represents a set of best practices that will guide you through the most common development patterns.

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Koen Verbeeck

Integration Services Performance Best Practices – Data Flow Optimization

January 26, 2017 by

In this article, we’ll present a couple of common best practices regarding the performance of Integration Services (SSIS) packages. These are general guidelines for package design and development which guarantee a good performance in most use cases. However, there are always exceptional cases and outliers. The mantra of “measure twice, cut once” also applies here. Thoroughly test any changes to your packages to conclude that a change made a positive effect. This means not only running the in the designer, but also on the server. Also, this article is not an exhaustive list of all possible performance improvements for SSIS packages. It merely represents a set of best practices that will guide you through the most common development patterns.

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Thomas LeBlanc

Deploying Packages to SQL Server Integration Services Catalog (SSISDB)

January 16, 2017 by

Starting with SQL Server 2012, Integration Services (SSIS) packages can now be deployed to a single source for managing execution in multiple environments. The SSIS Catalog is a single database container for all deployed packages. The configuration files are replaced with Environments. Deployed versions are tracked historically and a package can be reverted to a previous deployment. On top of these features, internal reports with a dashboard help when debugging errors or examining performance over time.

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Thomas LeBlanc

Parameterizing Database Connection in SQL Server Integration Services

January 12, 2017 by

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) has been growing into an enterprise solution over the last three releases. Variables were a step in that direction, but with Project deployments to the SSIS Catalog in SQL Server 2012 Microsoft has stepped it up, even more. Project parameters have become the go to solution for changing variable values in packages at run time. This article is going to dive into an example that parameterizes the Server Name and Initial Catalog (database name) in a connection string for packages in a project.

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Sifiso Ndlovu

How to setup SQL Agent Job alerts to include SSIS catalog errors

December 7, 2016 by

I must have been one of the first people who abandoned BIDS as soon as SSDT was first introduced. Although I have never regretted that decision, I do sometimes feel that SSDT has introduced an unnecessary additional layer of troubleshooting package execution failures. Regardless of whether your SSIS packages are deployed using BIDS or SSDT, the common scheduling mechanism used to run those packages is usually the SQL Server Agent. This is where you are likely to encounter additional layers of troubleshooting SSDT-deployed packages. This is because unlike BIDS where package execution details were stored in the same database (msdb) as were the execution details of SQL Server Agent job, the advent of SSDT came with an introduction a new database – SSISDB – which is used to, amongst other things, store package execution details. Subsequently, in order to retrieve details of package execution, we ought to query the SSIDB database.

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Gerald Britton

How to see the schema of a result set before running a query

November 30, 2016 by

Introduction

Suppose you’ve been asked to run a query against some SQL Server database but you don’t know anything more than the name of a stored procedure that you need to call. If you are going to do anything with the result set, you need to know at least the names and types of the columns to expect. This is actually a problem faced by many applications, including SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

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Sifiso Ndlovu

How to stop a runaway SSIS package

September 13, 2016 by

There are many reasons for terminating a long running SSIS Package. Picture a scenario whereby an inexperienced DBA/developer accidentally kicks-off a monthly job instead of a daily job, inadvertently impacting SQL Server performance. Whatever the reasons, you are more than likely to encounter a situation in which you have to temporary stop a long running process.

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Shawn Melton

SSIS and PowerShell – Execute process task

April 11, 2016 by

Introduction

SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and PowerShell (PS) together offer a plethora of opportunities, and some shortcuts when having to import, export, or at times moving data. I have come across packages that contain a Script Task with lines and lines of C# code that, done with PowerShell, could make maintaining that package much easier. Overall, the most common thing I see Script Task doing is accessing the file system or doing some manipulation on a file. One thing I hope that picks up speed in the BI world of SSIS is utilizing PowerShell for these type of actions. This is not to say one is better than the other as you should pick what is best in your eyes, but when I can do operations against the file system with a one-liner in PowerShell it is just easier to maintain that in the package. In this article I will go over how you can use the most common task utilized for executing PowerShell code in an SSIS package: Execute Process Task.

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Sifiso Ndlovu

Working with ragged right formatted files in SSIS

March 16, 2016 by

In the world of SSIS development architecture, preference should be given to extracting data from flat files instead of non-Microsoft relational databases. This is because you often don’t have to worry about driver support and compatibility issues in your SSIS development/server machine that is often attributed to non-Microsoft database vendors. In fact, I’ve been in several situations whereby we cannot upgrade to another version of SSIS (i.e. BIDS to SSDT) due to the lack of external vendor driver compatibility issues in the newer versions of SSIS.

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Steve Simon

SQL Server data mining – How to turn the data into valuable information

June 10, 2015 by

Introduction

In a past chat back in January 2015, we started looking at the fantastic suite of data mining tools that Microsoft has to offer. At that time, we discussed the concept of a data mining model, creating the model, testing the data and running an ad-hoc DMX query. For those folks that may have missed this article, the link may be found immediately below;

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Steve Simon

How to import data into SQL Server databases using the OData source for SQL Server Integration Services

April 6, 2015 by

Introduction

A few days back I was looking at ways to access raw data from within Microsoft Dynamics CRM in an effort to extract the raw data and to place it in our data warehouse. I started to explore utilizing OData and SSIS to pull the necessary data from the cloud to our local warehouse.

Whilst there are known authentication issues between Dynamics CRM and the Microsoft OData SSIS data source (and thus we could not utilize this access method), I thought it to be so very powerful, that I began looking for other constructive manners in which to utilize the OData Source.

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Steve Simon

Creating dynamically generated CSV files containing SQL Server data

February 12, 2015 by

Introduction

A few months back, I presented a paper at SQL Saturday 327 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Late last month I received an email from one of the attendees. His issue was quite interesting and I decided to share it with you. The gentleman wanted a SSIS script that would permit him to extract data from a SQL Server database table and place it in a CSV file with a dynamically allocated name. Being a strong advocate of using the SSIS toolbox, I experimented with an alternative solution. We are going to construct THIS SOLUTION in today’s get together.

Let’s get started.

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Steve Simon

How to clean data using Data Quality Services and SQL Server Integration Services

October 29, 2014 by

Introduction

A year or so ago, I worked for an online web grocery software house located in the northern United States. At that time I had my ‘baptismal’ exposure to ‘genuinely dirty data’. Granted most of the data entry was done manually and many times from offshore. The point being that I could not fathom just how many ways there were to spell the brand name of a major cereal manufacturer. Why is this such an issue? The answer is fairly straight forward. Imagine the scenario that you are trying to ascertain the dollar value of breakfast cereals sold in the country from the local supermarket standpoint all the way up to national sales. Imagine this utilizing a SQL Server Multi-dimensional cube. The ‘eagle – eyed’ reader will recognize that the results will not aggregate correctly should our aggregation attributes have a plethora of different ways of being spelt. Read more »

Marko Radakovic

Using an XML file to configure an SSIS package

March 16, 2014 by
To configure an SSIS package means to choose property/value pairs added to a completed package, and include them in the configuration file for the further modifications. If for any reason some of the values has been changed after the deployment is finished and the package run, they can be added later, opening the package in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), and changing the values Read more »
Marko Radakovic

Ways to use and execute SQL Server Integration Services packages

March 13, 2014 by
SSIS packages (SQL Server Integration Services) are a part of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform and a tool for building high performance data integration and workflow applications. It is also a tool for data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL), and can be used to automate maintenance of the SQL Server databases and updates. Basically, they can be used for moving data, with no transformations, from a variety of source types to a variety of destination types, including text files and other SQL Server instances Read more »